Photo by Joshua Yospyn
Over the weekend, Occupy D.C. endured what might be considered a major test for the open-air political encampment—constant freezing or near-freezing temperatures along with the winter’s first accumulative snowfall.
McPherson Square was mostly quiet yesterday afternoon, with most of the occupiers either staying nestled in their tents or finding someplace warm to hang out. Tarps covering the makeshift homes crackled under a layer of ice from Friday night’s storm that left as much as 1.5 inches of snow on the area along with a dousing of sleet and freezing rain early Saturday.
In McPherson’s northwestern corner yesterday, Marc Scott, a stocky man wearing a Carhartt jumpsuit, was rummaging through his weatherbeaten tent. Scott, 40, described himself as a hermit-like Deadhead as he collected a pile of blankets. His dog, a black labrador named Murray Bear, stood nearby, pouncing on the toes of whoever walked by. Were the chilly temperatures—the high Sunday was just 32 degrees but it felt much colder—intimidating?
“Fuck no,” Scott said with a big chortle. “I thrive on this.”
Near the Occupy camp’s library, Kelsey James, a young woman who arrived in town last week to join up with Occupy Congress, was less enraptured by the local climes. Before the protests started last year, James had been a mathematics major at the California Institute of Technology. She left Caltech in October to go home to Reno, Nev., where she joined Occupy. Since arriving in Washington, James has been staying in a tent on Freedom Plaza, where it’s been cold and often windswept, staying bundled up in her thermal sleeping bag.
“I guess I’m sticking it out,” she said. “I’m doing it for a good cause.”
Standing next to James was Jesse Schultz, a burly fellow who looked built for the cold. At 60, Shultz said he the cold front, which is expected to break tomorrow, was nothing too tough. Before coming to D.C. last year, Schultz said he spent about three years living in a tent in Truth or Consequences, N.M. At 4,200 feet above sea level, the spa town with the funny name can get awfully chilly, but camping in the high desert is a bit different than in a low-lying urban park.
“I’ve camped out in zero degrees,” Schultz said. “Of course out there by 11:30 a.m. you’re in your T-shirt.” Yesterday, Schultz was wearing a thick jacket, a wool cap and other cold-weather items.
He also showed off his tent, which sits less than three feet tall and looked barely large enough to fit his entire frame. “A small tent stays warmer,” Shultz said. In the tent he’s got a 50-degree Coleman sleeping bag with an extreme-weather “mummy bag” nestled inside. He seemed as well prepared for the long haul as any occupier, a smart move considering he’s got a trial coming up in late March as one of 13 people arrested for breaking into the Franklin School in November. (“It’s not the first roof I’ve been pulled off of in D.C.,” he said.)
With all the proper gear, then, it wasn’t a surprise to hear that Schultz, who was an IT contractor in Philadelphia before becoming a full-time political activist, is a fount of camping advice for his younger compatriots.
“Make sure you have a tarp,” to cover one’s tent, Schultz said, noting that any water accumulating on the exterior would result in condensation inside. “At first they were having problems.”
